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The tall ship Niagara is shown taking samples from the Great Lake in 2012. Sherri Mason, a professor of chemistry at the State University of New York at Fredonia, found large numbers of microbeads in the Great Lakes in samples taken in 2012 and 2013. She welcomes action by the U.S. Congress to ban the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products. Canada is considering similar action. (Handout)

The new Liberal government in Ottawa is carrying on with plans to ban the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products.

The previous Conservative government said, just before the election campaign began last summer, that it would develop regulations to ban the practice of adding the small plastic particles as abrasives in body scrubs, toothpaste and other personal care products.

The tiny plastic spheres, have been found in large numbers in the Great Lakes, raising worries about the impact on fish and wildlife.

“We are moving forward to ban microbeads in personal care products under Canada's Chemicals Management Plan,” Barbara Harvey, a spokesperson with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said this week.

“In order to protect the long-term health of our environment and to keep Canada's lakes and rivers clean, we are developing regulations to phase out the use of microbeads.”

Public consultations are expected this year, followed by a final order to add microbeads to the list of toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, Harvey said.

“Definitely, we want to be protecting the environment,” said Marilyn Gladu, the Conservative Science Critic and MP for Sarnia-Lambton.

The previous Conservative government called for a review to determine “what is the right action, and what are the right preventions,” she added.

“I certainly support the new government continuing that line.”

Just before the end of 2015, President Barak Obama signed a bill passed by Congress that will ban use of microbeads in the U.S. by 2019.

The law was fueled by grassroots campaigns that began after Sherri Mason, a professor at the State University of New York in Fredonia, discovered large amounts of plastic microbeads in samples taken from the Great Lakes in the summers of 2012 and 2013 during tours by the tall ship Niagara, a replica of an 1812-era American warship.

“It's been a whirlwind,” Mason said about the push for a ban that began in state capitals around the U.S. and culminated in the signing of the bill on Dec. 28.

“It's very rare, to be honest, that science takes such a role anymore in government,” Mason said.

“It's really like a David and Goliath story. It's pretty sweet.”

She credits action on bans at the state level, including one passed by California, with helping the federal bill succeed.

“Industry saw the writing on the wall,” Mason said.

“I think the reason the national bill passed so quickly is because they didn't fight it.”

Many major cosmetic companies in the U.S. have already announced plans to phase out use of plastic microbeads.

Pierre Sadik, a lawyer with Ecojustic, said the Canadian environmental law charity believes it's important for Ottawa to move quickly on a ban in Canada.

“It's an enormous problem and it continues to grow.”

Sadik said it was encouraging how quickly Washington put a ban in place.

“Hopefully Canada can move as least as quickly.”

Ecojustice is also urging Canada to include “so-called bio-degradable” plastic in the ban, Sadik said.

“The problem is that there are dozens of different types of plastics that are characterized as bio-degradable, and they end up not being safe under real-life aquatic conditions,” he said.

Sadik said alternatives are already available, including abrasives made from apricot pits, pumice, oatmeal and others materials, “that perform the same as microbeads, but they're entirely safe in a marine environment.”

Mason said Illinois, the first state to pass a ban, included a “bio-degradable loophole.” But, it was closed by the federal law that prevents use of bio-degradable plastic microbeads.

“That was very important to many of us who work on this issue,” she said.

After finding high concentrations of microbeads, particularly in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, Mason went on to complete a waste water treatment study, now out for review.

It confirmed that microbeads aren't filtered out of waste water as it makes it way through treatment plants.

Mason said they also conducted a food web assessment that focused on 25 species of fish, “and have found microplastics in every single species.”

Her research is also looking at 29 tributaries to the Great Lakes, and her next project, expected to begin this summer, will be laboratory feeding studies to examine the impact microbeads have on fish.

One of the concerns is that microbeads can absorb dangerous pollutants already in the water.

“We found the plastics in the water, we found chemical adsorb to the plastics, we've found those plastics in fish,” Mason said.

“Now, the question is how is that affecting the fish, and are the chemicals desorbing into the fish?”